IT WASN’T ME!
I didn’t see the the 1938 movie entitled, “You Can’t Take It With You,” but apparently Grandpa Martin Vanderhoff said to a wealthy, Mr Kirby: “Maybe it’d stop you trying to be so desperate about making more money than you can ever use? You can’t take it with you.”
Jesus said something like this in Luke 12:15:
“Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”
Jesus followed In Luke 12:16-21 with this parable:
“The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’
Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods’.
And I’ll say to myself, ‘You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.’
“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’”
HOME SWEET HOME
On January 7th, “You can’t take it with you” couldn’t have been more clear, as a fire raged through the Pacific Palisades, consuming our house along with those of thousands of others. In 1969, Sharon and I cobbled together $6,000 for a down payment on a one-and-a-half bedroom, small house in the Pacific Palisades. It wasn’t far from UCLA where we were ministering to students.
With the help of church friends, we cleaned the long neglected small cottage and made it comfortable. A few years later, because of the generosity of a friend, we were able to enlarge our Palisades cottage, as we added more children and grew to a family of eight. Sharon added touches of beauty and charm, and most of all, hospitality, to our house, as we hosted Bible studies, fellowship gatherings, and people who stayed with us for short and long stays (Lizzie for two years). Here is what the house looked like just a few weeks ago:
YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU!
We then lived in our Palisades house for eleven years before moving away in 1980 (France, Thousand Oaks, and Holland). Rather than sell the house, we rented it out for the 21 years that we lived elsewhere. Then, in 2001, we moved back to our Palisades house to be closer to the airport.
It was (literally) my home base as I traveled back and forth to Europe, leading the multiplication of churches, while Sharon managed the home front. In 2011, it continued as our “base-camp,” as we joined Global Training Network to train networks of leaders in Asia, Africa, and Latin America (which I continue to do).
The Palisades (and Altadena) fire incinerated most of what was in its path, as other fires had done in Paradise, California (2018), Louisville, Colorado (2021 — our friends Steve and Gunila Sorensen lost their home in that one), in the Sierra Nevadas and Janesville (2021 — our friends Dave and Marylin Hutchens and their daughter lost their homes in that fire), and the Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii (2023). There have been lots of other fires in recent years too.
This time it was our home (and the homes of a lot of our neighbors and friends) that succumbed to the fire. Here is what remains:
A CAVIAT: YOU CAN TAKE SOMETHING WITH YOU
Sharon and I have long known that we would one day leave behind our Palisades house and all that was in it. We knew “We couldn’t take it with us.” Sharon had already left it all behind and headed to Heaven in 2022, and I know that sooner or later I will too. But we also have known that there is something we can take with us.
Jesus hinted at this at the end of his’ Luke 12 parable. After saying,
“You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?”
He adds a caveat,
“This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.”
The caveat is that we can take something with us, by being “rich toward God.”
Like the rich man in the parable (and Mr. Kirby in the movie), we are going to leave all the money and things we accumulate behind. We can’t take take any of that with us. But we can take something.
What can we take?
WE’RE TAKING THESE
Jesus said we can “provide purses for ourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys” (Luke 12:33).
We can help others come to know and confess Jesus as Lord, believe in their hearts too that God raised him from the dead, and join us in having eternal life (Romans 10:9-10).
We can help others join in the promise Jesus made that “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” (John 14:3).
SOMETHING BETTER
After listing men and women of old who trusted the promises of God, Hebrews 11:39–40 tells us,
“These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.”
That’s what I am reaching for. This is why I can move forward with faith, hope, and purpose. I will miss some of the books, notebooks, pictures, mementos, and family albums, but I know that the Palisades house, and all that was in it, was on loan, so to speak. I know (and Sharon knew) that Jesus promises something better.
We are taking lots of memories and, more importantly, so many people with us. We know that these and so much more are stored up for us in heaven.
Even after the loss, the house is still providing memories. My grandsons Linus III (age 10) and Roman (age 8), painted me the following pictures. We’re taking them too—not the actual paintings but the grandsons and the memory of their empathetic and believing hearts. Can y0u see the cross on the house in the top picture, and the angel, rainbow of promise, and our loving God smiling down in the second?
Yes, we’re taking much with us, including thankfulness for you.
Pressing forward to all that God has ahead for us now…and for eternity,
Linus
On Expedition + 
I, Jessie, was looking at the map and looking up everyone’s addresses that I knew who lived near the fires. Then later I looked at the damage maps, and I saw that your house had burned down. I’m glad you got out ok, you didn’t mention anything about how you escaped, or if you were even there when the fires were burning. We have been praying for you ever since the fires began. I’m sure you are still in the shock stage and more grief will come later, but we will continue to pray for God’s comfort and provision for you.
continued prayers from Jessie and Mike Cheek